OK, long story short (if I can), Bought my '08 Prius Touring from Toyota of Hollywood in summer of '08, had it shipped to me in suburb of Milwaukee, WI. They had the wheels chromed including the air nozzle (to fill the tires with air) and end cap. Those darn 'bling' items + salt = corrosion. Yeah. Ouch. (I know, I didn't keep them clean enough...) So, left rear wheel had the end cap corrode to the nozzle. Tried to get it off very carefully with pliers and made a sizable boo-boo. Essentially, when I undid it yesterday afternoon, air started coming out as soon as I started to undo the chrome end cap. Took it to Toyota dealer and they put a temp. something in there with a brass nozzle. But, for now, of course, things are fine and safe. They're going to replace, what I believe is the valve stem tomorrow evening for $185 installed. Now, I am ignorant and don't know enough about cars as I should being a male in my mid-30s. So, I see one of these two scenarios: 1. Just getting a new tire from tirerack.com for $130 shipped would not include the valve stem so that wouldn't help me. 2. Getting a new tire would include the valve stem and the dealer is trying to rip me off by charging me $185 JUST FOR THE VALVE STEM that's way and above the cost of a whole new tire! OK folks, 1 or 2? Thanks for all your help! Michael R.
Do you have TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System)? If it is, the valve stem is part of the TPMS sensor and the price seems in the ballpark.
Yes, it does have TPMS. So, based on your reply, getting a new tire would NOT include the valve stem and or the TPMS sensor, and this is why the cost is $185, right? Thanks. Michael
Hi md..., Well, you can call this the FORD tax. You see Ford had this real low tire pressure as standard on their Explorer tires, a tall vehicle with tall tires. Well, they sold these things to Californian desert dwellers. The extra flex in the tire side walls due to the low prescribed tire pressure and high temperatures of a typical California desert caused the sidewalls of the tires to fail typically while people were doing high speeds on higways. Then the Explorers rolled over and killed people. Consequently, the Federal Governement main it mandatory that all road vehicles sold in the US beginning in 2006 to have a system which alerts the driver to low tire pressure. This requires a tire pressure sensor be integrated into to the valve stem. Of course, its made with low cost metal - which has galvanic potential with other low-cost metals in the valve extenders you have on your car. In Toyota vehicles this system is called the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System). Replace them with plastic extenders. If you want bling, get the exterior of the plastic extenders plasma coated with shiny metal.
Hi All, A side note reqarding the TPMS sensors. Prius cars before 2006 had rubber valve stems. As you may know its law that these be replaced each time tires are replaced. Tire places tend to use low-cost rubber stems, which of late have been made in China of sub-standard rubber. This rubber tends to fail in high ozone enviorments (IE your typical metropolitan area where most of the cars are). The TPMS sensors have a metal stem, which eliminates this problem. But as with all technology, there is a double-edged sword issue.
I would actually call it the Firestone/Ford tax. Ford specified the tires and inflation pressure, Firestone designed and manufactured the tires that failed and delaminated. I recall from the NTHSA report that the trend of failures indicated that it wasn't a question of if the tires would fail, it was only a question of when the tires would fail with hot temps speeding up the process of separation. I replaced mine when they were not included in the original recall, then was reimbursed by Ford a year later when they decided to extend the recall to include all sizes of the Firestone Wilderness AT.
